I feel like I’m split into two perceptions: On the one hand, the president of the United States has a potentially deadly disease and it’s apparently spreading like wildfire through his administration and that’s news that should shake and unnerve the world, including me, as a...

…citizen.

And on the other hand, I feel incredibly distanced from it all, because I don’t actually feel like the United States has a president.

And not on “I don’t recognize that guy as my president” grounds; I fully recognize that he’s got the job.

But I don’t think _he_ thinks he’s my president. I think, at best, he feels like the president of his admirers, and he just thinks he’s my boss. More likely, he thinks he’s everyone’s boss.

I don’t have a boss, as it happens, on either level. I’m self-employed and I’m an American citizen. So on that latter point, he’s supposed to be working for me, for all of us.

But I don’t think he’s been doing that, and I don’t think he even thinks he’s supposed to do that.

I don’t think he’s trying to protect me, or Americans. I don’t think he’s trying to make anything better, except for him and his family.

So when he’s got a potentially-deadly disease, I don’t react to it the way I would if it was any president of my lifetime, including Dubya...

…and Reagan, both of who I detested.

I react to it as “That self-interested using jerk has a potentially-deadly disease, and it might be taking out his gang.”

But at the same time, it’s the fucking president of the United States, which has major repercussions for the nation...

…and the world. And I can see that, too, even if it doesn’t feel like it because he and his enablers in the government don’t act like they’re here to govern, just to rule.

So it’s…dissonant.

If we had a president who was a president, this would be really bad.

Since we don’t, it’s also really bad.

I don’t much care how he and his cronies come through this — I have a variety of schadenfreudey thoughts, but honestly, I don’t want to see the country damaged even...

…further, and frankly, the thought of a state funeral makes my skin crawl.

I find myself hoping that we — the nation and the world — get through this as well as possible and that we come out of it healthier and headed for better days.

Whatever it takes to get to that, I’m for.

The rampant dishonesty and criminal disregard for other people’s safety — the country’s, the world’s, even their own colleagues’ — is appalling.

It’s a terrible, terrible time to have such mendacious, uncaring, self-obsesed people in charge.

I wish us well.

And by “us,” I mean all of us, collectively, including the people out there who don’t agree with me politically and who I don’t agree with in return.

I don’t care all that much about the people doing such a lousy job managing this crisis — but I do hope for the health and...

…survival of the people who have to stand next to them.

Everybody have a good weekend, hey?